Students will develop new (or document existing) personal and/or family worship customs, such as morning devotions, meal offerings, or seasonal observances. Students will research worship customs of ADF and/or from a chosen Indo-European culture-whether historical or reconstructed and begin to implement these customs within the home setting (or other personal, rather than large group, context). These personal and/or household rituals or other observances may be either reconstructions of culturally specific practices, or based more upon modern ADF liturgical format, or a combination of the two. Household practices and rituals should include all interested members of the household, with options for the inclusion of children encouraged when applicable. Worship should be practiced weekly at a minimum, although daily practice is encouraged.

A specific aim of this course is to experiment and expand practice where possible: to that end, new practices and prayers should be a large part of the journal turned in for the final question.

NOTE: This course assumes the student is working with at least one hearth culture. In completing the Dedicant Path documentation, the student will have begun to explore this culture, including the reading of at least one book as the subject for a review. For students who may wish for further study—or who may wish to explore another cultural focus—the following books are possible resources to consult as needed.

The primary goal of this course is for students to develop and implement regular personal and/or family worship customs in the home setting.

Course Objectives

Students will increase their knowledge of personal and/or family worship customs of ADF and/or from a chosen Indo-European culture and be able to compare these customs to those of public ritual.

Students will demonstrate the implementation of new (or document existing) personal and/or family worship customs through regular journal entries documenting and describing this practice.

1. What three factors (“subcategories”) does Bonewits identify as determining the impact of “familiarity” on the success of a ritual? Briefly discuss the ways in which personal or family-only ritual is aided or hindered by these factors when compared to public group ritual. (Minimum 100 words)

Bonewits identifies three subcategories for intra-group familiarity: knowledge, affection, and group identity (Bonewits 57). Knowledge is both knowing each other and knowing the material – if you know, for example, “how well the other members of your group can chant, or drum or visualize, you have a better idea how to blend your energies with theirs to create the group mind” (57). Affection is fairly obvious – bonds of genuine friendship or love within a group will enhance the ability to perform ritual, as the “psychic and psychological barriers that most people keep between themselves will be fewer and more easily set aside” (57). Group identity is most effective when it is most specific – Bonewits gives the example that “We are of the (Gardnerian) Wica” is more effective than just “We are all witches”.

Personal or family-only ritual is aided largely by the first two – in small group ritual, you typically know everyone (or get to know them) and that knowledge and working history creates the bonds of friendship that Bonewits calls ‘affection’ in this case. Both of these are largely lost in large group rituals, where things are most often open to the public and where complete strangers may show up. In some ways, this may actually work counter to the ideals of knowledge and affection, especially with members who are more shy or reticent around new individuals to a meeting. However, group identity, especially if it is well cultivated during the ‘creating the group mind’ step of the COOR, can be very strong within a large, even public group ritual. A well-orchestrated public ritual does its best work when everyone feels – at least for the moment – as though they are part of a community that is working together, and thus that is an obstacle that can be overcome in public group ritual.

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2. What six methods of prayer does Ceisiwr Serith describe? Briefly suggest an example of how you might employ each in your personal worship practices. You may include worship with a group if applicable. (Minimum 200 words)

Praying through words

Perhaps the most obvious method of prayer for me is prayer through words. I have found, through my practice, that there is power in words spoken aloud that is not there in words spoken silently ‘in your head,’ though obviously in public places like at work this is often the only option. My prayer practice is largely done out loud, even if sometimes sotto voce, which doubles as practice for group prayer. As a Senior Druid, I do a lot of group prayer with my grove, and that is done intentionally through using my voice to create atmosphere and tone for the people who have joined us around the fire.

Praying through Posture

Serith mentions both kneeling and prostration as prayer postures familiar to a Western audience, but I find that I most often stand to pray, as my altar is on top of a small bookshelf that is about waist height. I do make use of the orans position quite frequently (which I was rather appalled to learn is restricted in some churches only to priests!), both in private prayer and especially in public prayer. I also try to use my hands in group practice as directive of where the prayer is “going” – whether up to the sky for the Sky Father, down to the earth for the Earth Mother, or into the Hallows.

Praying through Motion

Serith mentions circumambulation as one type of prayer through motion, which is a type of prayer that I use more often in group ritual. In my private practice, most of my praying is done at an altar that is butted up against a wall, so it’s hard to walk about. However, if I am doing a blessing or a cleansing, I use the motion of my body to mirror the motions of the prayer through the space.

Praying through Dance

Serith calls dance the “ultimate form of praying with motion” (24), and it is a prayer form that I almost never use in my own practice, public or private, which I think I might want to reconsider. The act of dance can be very sacred, and can also facilitate a trance state that is very helpful when directing energy in prayer. This is a form of praying that I’d like to explore more, though I often feel ‘funny’, for lack of a better term, when dancing alone in my apartment.

Praying through Music

Music can be either accompaniment to dance, or the sung or chanted prayers themselves. I particularly enjoy sung prayers and have memorized a number of songs and chants to use in core order rituals. My grove uses these extensively, led by our bard and his guitar, but they are equally powerful with just a voice or voices. Praying through song changes the pace of the ritual and can add great affect to both group and private ritual, and is something I do often.

Praying through Gestures

Gestures are “somewhere between postures and motions” and are “things done with the hands and arms” that have their own meaning (Serith 27). I especially like the description of prayer gestures as a “little dance” – a dance performed with only one part of your body (27). I use gestures in ritual frequently; identifying things, showing the motion or flow of energy, directing participants, and channeling offerings.

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3. What arguments does Ceisiwr Serith make in support of set prayers (as opposed to spontaneous prayers)? Discuss how these arguments apply (or do not apply) to solitary Pagan prayer. (Minimum 200 words)

Serith makes the argument that set prayers involve “a relationship between the pray-er, the prayer, and the one prayed to,” where this relationship is “expressed through the words of a prayer” (66). He argues that while the words of a set prayer may be identical each time they are prayed, each prayer event is “no more identical to those before it than each performance of a particular piece of music is the same as another” (66).

He also argues that ancient Paganism had set prayers – some of which have survived until today – and particularly mentions the Rg Veda and Roman prayer books. As well, there are times when we want to pray, but we can’t find the words (66-7). At these times, such as at a funeral or other times of great personal distress, set prayers allow us to be comforted and to give up having to think about or try to find the right words.

Group prayer is also, by nature, set prayer – people “need to know what to say, so they can say it together” (67). This type of prayer serves both its function as a prayer and also as a way of bringing people together.

The most important rationale, according to Serith, for set prayers is a phenomenon that he calls ‘deepening.’ “The more often a prayer is said, the deeper it sinks into your consciousness. Eventually, it sinks into your unconscious mind” (67). At that point, you are no longer simply saying a prayer; it has become a part of who you are and how you think.

In my personal, private practice I have found that there are times for set prayers, and there are times for extemporaneous prayers, and it would do my practice a huge disservice to abandon one or the other. Serith’s own Cosmos Prayer is a huge part of my practice, and is a prayer that I hope is slowly ‘deepening’ into my consciousness. As well, my daily Earth Mother and Gatekeeper prayers are fairly set at this point. However, I also find that if I want to do a core order, I am less likely to stress less about what is being said if I have a prayer to start from, but don’t feel obligated to speak it identically every time. In my journal below I have included two full Core Order rituals that I use, but I rarely use one entirely from start to finish, despite having most of them memorized. I’ll feel inspired, or be in a hurry and need to hit the high points, etc.

For myself, then, I find Serith’s arguments for set prayers to be compelling, and use them in my practice frequently, but then, I come from a Catholic background (albeit having been born in an American Baptist family) so my love of set and memorized prayers is fairly unsurprising.

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4. Keep and submit for review a journal documenting the development and observance of the personal/household worship customs described above covering a period of not less than four months, including one observance of a seasonal festival, such as one of the eight ADF High Days. Entries are to be not less than weekly. The text of individual prayers and longer devotional rituals should be provided as frequently as possible. Regular practices occurring less than weekly will be considered if they are documented as revivals or reconstructions of historically-attested observances occurring less than weekly.

All Liturgy Practicum 1 Journals are previously posted on this blog, in the category Liturgy Journal 1, and can be read there.

Four months ago I started this journey to ‘reboot’ my spiritual practice. It had turned from something vibrant and wonderful into really nothingness, after a year of complete personal upheaval. So I started at the beginning, with nothing but a flame, and gradually rebuilt my practice into something that I think is both suitable for me at this stage in my life and adequate for my practice as a Senior Druid and priest-in-training.

My current practice includes:

Full COoR ritual once a week (usually Tuesday nights, sometimes Fridays too), which includes divination

Lunar retreat days as part of the Clergy Discipline

“Crowdsourced” Full Moon rituals with my grove

Weekly study meetings with my grove

(Mostly) daily practice even if it’s just 3 minutes at my altar to light some incense

Regular offerings to the Gatekeeper, Earthmother, Ing Frea, and to my house spirits

High day rituals with my grove (which I write and coordinate)

Which doesn’t feel like a lot of spiritual practice, but looking at it written out, I’ve come a long way in four months. I enjoyed that the purpose of this course was to develop and observe a “domestic hearth cult” practice, and I think in the last weeks I really have done that. My rituals aren’t complicated, but they work, and they keep me from losing the spiritual focus in my life, even if it’s just to say a quick prayer and light a little flame most days.

I haven’t talked here about the Flame of Hope project, as I didn’t feel when it began that I could commit to lighting a flame every day, and I still am not sure I’d be ready to make that kind of commitment, but I do think about it often, and my prayers often mirror those posted by others walking the path of Hope.

I am looking forward to how this practice will evolve over time – I’m sure like anything else it will wax and wane, but all of life cycles that way. I did my final “journaled” week of meditations last night and pulled runes (as has become my custom with this work). They were as follows:

Rad – the journey – something that takes time, and that always seems easier when you’re not on the road doing it

Gyfu – the gift, reciprocity

Os – a mouth – wise speech, cunning words, Woden’s gifts

I found the omen very fitting. Gyfu especially has been a rune that I see often in conjunction with my clergy training, and finding it here made me smile. A befitting end to my four months of journaling, and hopefully a good start onto a practice that will last me a long time.

And if it doesn’t, well, I can always go back to the flame and begin again.

As I enter into this second-to-last week of journaling, I wanted to post another core order ritual that I’ve used recently. It’s much more formal than the one I’d posted about earlier this year, and I don’t think I like it as well. It’s one that I wrote with the help of several others, and has influences that a lot of old-school ADFers will recognize.

I’ll put it behind a read-more tag at the end of the post.

My daily practice has resumed without much fuss, post Harvey. Next week I will be on vacation, but I am officially done with my four months of journaling on Monday of next week, so I intend to finish this course and turn it in to be reviewed while I am off celebrating.

My practice over these last few months has not changed dramatically, but it has… congealed a bit, I guess? I feel more stable and grounded with it – I know I started from nothing, and parts of me still feel like what I’m doing “isn’t enough”, but I know that this work has to come from the practice that I do and the life that I have, and so much of my life DOES revolve around my spirituality right now that I can hardly say I’m not paying enough attention. I’ve found this practice to be helpful and useful, and I think I’ve learned something for having to have written about it every week. It’s been a very fast-paced four months, and I am constantly surprised by how much I already knew, and yet also by how much I have learned.

I can only hope my reviewers will get the same impression from the words I’ve written here.

Eolh – the yew – reliability, something overlooked, “all that is gold does not glitter”

Ur – the aurochs – strength, stubbornness, a hard fought victory

Though things are unexpected and sometimes unpredictable, you have the reliable resources around you (though they can be easily overlooked). Your battle will not be easy, but you have the strength to fight it.

All told, I was gone for 10 days – I left on Thursday, returned home on Saturday. Today is Sunday, and my apartment is mostly set to rights again. I had no damage to the building, though my entire garden on the balcony is pretty much destroyed. I’ve gone grocery shopping, mostly replenished the stuff that I had to throw away, and have done some laundry. I’m very happily wearing an outfit that didn’t come out of a suitcase.

This whole experience was exceptionally disruptive to my spiritual practice. (Duh?) I spent 10 days without a way to kindle a fire, no way to light incense, and in the home of family who are so devoutly Christian that the room I was staying in has been decorated in what I jokingly refer to as “ostentatious Hobby Lobby chic”. Crosses all over everything. Bible verses everywhere. Angels in all of the art. My parents are wonderful people, and they know that I’m no longer Christian, but it was very jarring to wake up and have an artfully arranged display of crosses be the first thing my eyes set on every morning.

It wasn’t an unpleasant week, all things considered, but it was a challenging one. Being at the mercy of nature (and the electric company). Being displaced from your home with no way to tell what was going on. I’m one of the lucky ones who had a home to go back to – many in coastal Texas this week are not so fortunate. I’m left thinking about what my private devotions *should* look like in such a situation, and all told I think I did pretty well. While my parents said their very-Christian grace over dinner each night, I said my own in my head, or said the Cosmos prayer if I couldn’t think of a meal blessing.

Actually, I said the cosmos prayer a lot.

I think, if I had to make a bug-out kit for future hurricanes, I’d include Ceisiwr Seriths A Book of Pagan Prayer in there, just for some variation. Writing prayers to help others is easy, but writing prayers for yourself when you’re in the middle of trouble is much harder.

I did write a prayer that I sent out to my grove though:

Mighty Kindred, we pray your help and blessings on all those in Houston and all of southeast Texas. May your spirits come to those in need, whether in the form of mental comfort or in the form of aid and rescuers, whatever they may need. Bless all those who are helping their neighbors, human and animal alike, that they may be safe, and that they may bring succor and safety to others.

Ancestors, blood of our blood and spirit of our spirit, we pray you give us strength – you were people who knew the challenge of building and rebuilding. As we enter the last phase of this storm, and move to facing what’s next, may we find your resilience and courage as we seek to re-order our lives.

Nature Sprits, you who are also displaced and affected by this storm, we pray you will be our allies, and that we can be yours. May we, as kindred of this middle realm, know that we are neighbors, and may we look out for each other as we rebuild, finding both our own place and yours after the storm

Deities, known and unknown, first children of the Mother, we pray you will give us guidance and comfort. Grant your wisdom to those who are helping, and your patience to those who have nothing to do but wait. As we move to rebuild, grant your strength to us all, that we may do the most good where it is most needed. Most especially, we pray that you who rule over releasing the waters will guide the last of these waters so that they will do the least amount of harm.

Kindreds all, we look to you now, and we ask that you bless each of us according to our needs – strength, patience, guidance, comfort. May we live our virtues in this time of trouble, and may we, as your kin, look to you now as we endure the last that this storm has to offer, and may we look to you always, as we rebuild and bring our lives back together.

Be it so!

And so we move forward. The storm is past, and now it is up to us to recover. To serve those who need help, and to piece together what we can of the old and create something new from it. (Easy for me to say, from my apartment which has power and internet working again already.)

My practice did not suffer for spending 10 days displaced, though it did adapt and change.

My runes for this week are:

Peordh – the dice cup, an uncertain outcome

Is – ice, stasis/beauty/danger

Ur – the aurochs, strength and stubbornness

The outcome of any storm is never certain – may you know when to be still and wait and when to fight with the stubbornness of the aurochs, that you may overcome the challenges ahead of you.

Hurricane Harvey paid me a visit this week – I spent the first part of the week fretting about whether or not I would stay or leave. Then on Thursday afternoon, I saw the updated forecast to Category 4, saw the projected rainfall, and decided to just get the hell out.

I made that decision around 1:30 pm, talked to my boss, shut down my work for the day, and was on the road to Dallas with my cats by 3pm.

I had with me:

my runes and a deck of tarot cards (no reading cloth, no books)

my prayer beads

five days worth of clothes

a week’s worth of prescription medication plus a bit extra

two cats

a cat box

all the perishable food from my fridge that I thought was worth saving

And that’s it. This course is supposed to be about developing a home hearth based practice – as a Houstonian, hurricane evacuations are just going to be part of that practice, so there’s actually some merit in having it happen during my journal for this class. That said, it wasn’t fun, and I’m still displaced as of writing this (to be published later). My practice right now is prayer. Lots of prayer. My friends and loved ones are in the path of this storm – most of Nine Waves grove did not evacuate, for various reasons, and so I watch to make sure they are safe, and I pray.

Watching a storm like this come aground while you can do nothing about it puts me in mind to think on the power of nature, and to remember that I’m glad I don’t work in a cosmology that has a “problem of evil”. Sometimes bad things happen. It’s not personal.

I’ll try to unpack more of that next week. For now, I just hope and pray that next week when I write my journal entry, I have a home to go back to.

I spent a lot of time this last week in contemplation, just of things in general. I got back my Liturgical Writing 1 submission, which is exciting, and I’ll be sharing it here, but otherwise it was a quiet week of offerings, prayers, and a lot of mantra meditation. I’ve been working on my Trance practice (not journaling it on the blog because it’s been a lot more of a learning process, and I didn’t feel like I wanted that out in the open), and working on what it means, or will mean, to be an ADF Priest, and to be a priest in general.

There’s a lot of quiet, personal work that is being asked of me right now – a lot of divination, a lot of meditation and prayer. I feel like I’m being “geared up” to do something bigger in time, but for now I’m getting used to a deeper relationship with Ing Frey, and what it means to serve a god of frith, a god of prosperity, a god of protection, a god of harvest. I wrote a prayer to him for my LW submission that I think I’d like to share, because it’s encompassed so many aspects of this deity that has become the central focus of my practice. (House spirits and ancestors always get offerings, but right now He is demanding a lot of attention.)

Hail Frey, Lord of the fields!
Beautiful lord of the Vanir
Golden of hair as the fields of wheat and corn,
Bringing riches of heart and hearth to the folk.

We hail you with the grain that springs forth
And falls again to nourish us.
We hail you, on your mighty boar in flight,
Lord of Frith that is bound to land,
You who can warm the cold heart,
Warrior without a weapon
Who give your prosperity to all of your kin,
You guide and sustain your descendants.

Lord Ing, Providing god,
God of the bees and the barley,
You who make the grain spring forth,
We sacrifice this, our first loaf, to you
As the grains are sacrificed for us each year.

It is late summer here, and my plants are spent – in need of pruning, fertilizing, and resetting for the autumn growing season. In many ways, I am preparing for the inward turn that winter brings – but also the outward turn that is being asked of me in my work in leading Nine Waves grove.

My rune readings for last week were:

Wynn – Joy – contentment, having enough, being fulfilled

Lagu – The Sea – an uncertain time, one that may feel unsettled and uprooted

Sigel – The Sun – victory, good advice

Find joy in this time in your life, despite the upheaval that surrounds you in your path. Look for those who can guide you and give good advice, for theirs is the way to victory.

Sometimes, when you get asked to do something, you don’t always know the outcome, but you know that the answer is to say yes. So I did. We’ll see what shakes out from that decision.

On more seasonal subjects, my Lammas sacrifice was accepted – I drew the rune “Wynn” (Joy) when I made the offering. I hope that I can keep to it, but like any practice, I expect that it will be something that I struggle with and possibly will fail at sometimes. But I hope that it will be of benefit to me, and that my addition to the sacrifice will aid in the overall sacrifice of the year.

This year, the grove ritual was to Ing Frea, and I got to give the main offering, which was particularly nice. I celebrated at home as well, using a variation of the Core Order Ritual that I use in my monthly and weekly rituals. Obviously instead of the main offering being to the earth mother and gatekeeper, though, this ritual was for Ing Frea. I didn’t actually write down the invitation I used, choosing instead to speak improvisationally. It came out well, I think.

The omens for the ritual were as follows:

Have my offerings been accepted: Daeg – The Day – Light which shines upon everyone equally, with blessing and bounty.

What blessings do the ancestors offer me: Mann – Mankind – The ancestors offer community, which is the delight of community, and give us each other for strength. My voice was joined with all those who raised their voices to the Kindreds tonight, and our Wyrd was strengthened as a result.

What blessings do the nature spirits offer me: Ur – the aurochs – The nature spirits offer strength, the strength that charges, bull-headed towards an obstacle and forces its way through. It is stubborn strength and a hard fought victory.

What blessings do the deities offer me: Ior – the beaver – flexibility, adaptability. The beaver lives in the water, but forages on the land, and thus must I be willing to adapt to our situations to find the blessings and the victory to triumph.

I also, as was the custom for the Anglo-Saxons, baked cornbread, blessed it with the waters from the ritual, and placed it in the four corners of my home as a spell of protection for the next year. My “Loaf Fest” isn’t from the wheat harvest, because I don’t keep wheat flour in my home (celiac), but it still felt right to do. I’ve done a variation on this as part of my personal practice for several years now, and it always feels like “August” is really here when I do it.

My personal omen draw for the week is as follows:

Nyd – a need – I typically draw this rune in one of two ways – either there is a need that is unmet, and that I must seek to meet it, or a warning of impending hardship that can be avoided through careful work and planning.

Peordh – a dice cup/unknown – The rune poem reference in this one is of companions playing dice in a hall; a friendly game of chance. It is the rune of Luck, and of unknown outcomes, but often has positive connotations when I see it. If anything, it’s a surprise coming my way that I can’t really plan for.

Os – a mouth/a god – I typically read this rune as “wise speech”, as it is Woden’s rune, and cunning and cleverness are his hallmarks. It can also mean conversations, and inspiration.

I’ll be honest, this reading is a little troubling – I’m not usually one for cunning or wise speech – I’m a pretty straightforward person. And the runes of Need and Luck in the same reading… could mean things are about to go pear shaped. Or perhaps I’ll have a need and it will be met in an unexpected way.